Happy First Day of Spring!

(Are you sure it’s not April Fool’s Day? Because you could’ve fooled me.)

Around here the First Day of Spring is just a date on a calendar. No daffodil or robin sightings in these parts yet. The hills are still clothed in muted shades of brown and the branches hang as bare as empty closet rods. The First Day of Spring could be more aptly named The 91st Day of Winter.

I must be a skeptic at heart, because every year about this time I catch myself wondering if spring will really come. Everything just looks so dead, dry, lifeless. How is it possible to transform this barren landscape into something vibrant and alive?

When spring tarries, doubt multiplies.

I’m like this in life too. I scan the horizon and see bleak situations. Cold hearts. Lifeless marriages.  And I wonder.

How? Is it even possible, Lord?

Then a bud appears. And another. The grand green carpet is rolled out once again. Spring shows up, surprising us, delighting us.

Miracles do happen. I’ve seen circumstances reversed. Prodigals returned. Health restored.  Marriages revived. God shows up, surprising us, delighting us.

So why do I doubt when He tarries?

“Oh, that we might know the Lord!  Let us press on to know him.  He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn or the coming of rains in early spring.”

(Hosea 6:3, NLT)

What if we really knew this great God of ours and what He is capable of? What if we truly believed that He is faithful and His Word is sure?

I bet we’d hold on. Press on. Hope on.

For winter never lasts forever. Spring will come!

And so will He!

*If you could use a touch of spring today, check out Steven Curtis Chapman’s beautiful song “Spring is Coming”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj3DMk3NB-8